Major Determinants of Female Child Labour in Urban Multan (Punjab-Pakistan)
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Karamat Ali and Abdul Hamid 61 Major Determinants of Female Child Labour in Urban Multan (Punjab-Pakistan) Karamat Ali and Abdul Hamid* Abstract In recent years, the sensitive issue of child labour has received world-wide attention and has become the focus of serious discussion in developing as well as developed countries. Any exact information on child labour is usually hard to come by as most of the children work in the unorganised informal sector, which is neither regulated by labour laws nor is monitored by any organisation. These working children are usually illiterate and start working at a very early age, are inexperienced and vulnerable, they usually work long hours in deplorable conditions, have no medical cover, go without sufficient and proper food and clothing, and get little rest and recreation. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyse the major causes of female child labour in the city of Multan and certain measures and policies have been suggested which could help in bringing an end to this inhumane practice. Legislation against child labour is not an ideal solution in a country such as Pakistan. The child labour phenomena is not as simple as it appears and needs consideration in the context of the microeconomics of the family and population growth and macroeconomics of the social security structure of a country, unemployment, underemployment, opportunity cost and productivity of formal education. There are very few studies on child labour in Pakistan and on female child labour, hardly any study can be found. Data has been collected for 60 female child labourers, employed as maidservants, baby sitters and other household activities etc. Most of these female children work in the houses of educated and well off people who are usually against child labour. This exploitation of child labour cannot be stopped by child labour laws only. In this regard, other measures such as more facilities for education and vocational training are indispensable. A group of social volunteers comprising workers, employers, government officers, media experts, members of non-government organisations and educationists should make earnest and sincere efforts to achieve the objective of minimising child labour and improve their living conditions as much as possible. * The authors are Professor and Lecturer in the Department of Economics, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, respectively. 6 2 The Lahore Journal of Economics, Vol.4, No.1 I. Introduction Child labour is one of the serious issues which has been widely discussed recently and is still being discussed in developing as well as in developed countries. Child labour may be defined as full time employment of a person under the age of 16 at a wage rate lower than the existing wage rate in the labour market. Innocent little children, who should be at schools or at play grounds, are on the path of earning their own and their families’ livings. Taking advantage of their economic compulsions, the employers hire children, pay them less than what they pay adult workers doing the same job, and they are thus exploited. Most of the children who work are usually employed in the informal sector which is not regulated by labour laws or any organisation. These working children are usually illiterate and start working at a very early age. Lacking education, these children have to work for long hours and they are deprived of even the basic needs such as food, clothing, health facilities and rest or recreation. The majority of them suffer from various respiratory diseases, tuberculosis, anemia, sight blindness, cancer and malnutrition, etc. Child labour exists all over the world. To collect reliable data about it is very difficult as most of the children work in the unorganised informal sector. According to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report (1994) about 150 million children between 6 and 14 years work all over the world1. According to another ILO report (1993) on the average 18 per cent of the total number of children in the world are engaged in child labour. Their region wise break up is 7 per cent working in Latin America, 18 per cent in Asia and 25 per cent in Africa2. A report entitled "The State of Working America 1992-93" stated that nearly 5.5 million children work in the U.S. Some 676,000 children work in the underground economy over which the government has little or no control. In 1990 job related deaths and casualties among these children numbered 139 and 71,660 respectively3. The child labour problem is more serious in developing countries and especially in Pakistan. According to the 1981 Census, the child population (5-14) in Pakistan is about 30 per cent of the total population, of which 40 per cent consists of child labour4. The ILO report (1990) mentioned some very disturbing facts relating to the carpet weaving child 1 "Why do children work?" Young World, The Daily Dawn Karachi, June 30, 1994. 2 The Daily Dawn Karachi, April 22, 1993. 3 "Child Labour in America": The Daily Dawn Karachi, September 19, 1992. 4 Statistical Pocket Book of Pakistan, 1991: Statistics Divisions, Government of Pakistan, March, 1991. Karamat Ali and Abdul Hamid 63 labour of Pakistan. According to the report, half of the 50,000 bonded children in the carpet industries died before reaching the age of 125. Legislation against child labour is not an ideal solution in a country such as Pakistan. The child labour phenomena is not as simple as it appears and needs consideration in the context of the microeconomics of family and population growth and macroeconomics of the social security structure of a country, unemployment, underemployment, opportunity cost and productivity of formal education. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyse the major causes of female child labour in the city of Multan and certain measures and policies have been suggested to hamper this inhumane practice. The layout of the study is as follows: literature of child labour has been reviewed in section II, section III consists of methodology, data description and hypothesis. Results and findings based on the survey6 conducted in Multan city have been discussed in section IV and finally, policy implications and conclusions are presented in section V. II. Review of Literature Child labour has been a problem in both developing and developed countries. According to an ILO report (1993), child labour is 18 per cent of all the children in the world2. The problem is more serious in developing countries which suffer from over population, unemployment, illiteracy and wide spread poverty. These are the major causes of child labour. According to BBC television, over 55 million children work in India7. M. Weiner and Omar Noman (1994) analysed child labour and education policies in India and Pakistan. According to their analysis, India and Pakistan have fallen behind the rest of Asian countries due to their wrong policies and not because of their poverty. There is widespread illiteracy and child labour in these countries. Education, especially in Pakistan, has secondary importance. It remains near the bottom among the countries of the world in respect of social indicators of development. Amongst 150 nations, Pakistan ranks 130th as regards the proportion of children attending school to the children of school going age, 120 in literacy rate, and 118 in per capita expenditure on health. In other words, there is a wide gulf between Pakistan's economic growth and social development performance. Half of Pakistan's children between ages 5 and 5 For further detail see the Daily Dawn Karachi "Without Child Labour", June, 1990. 6 Survey conducted by Dr. Karamat Ali, et.al. for the female child labour in Multan city, for the year 1993. 7 BBC, World Business News, Telecast on April 1, 1994 at 13.25 hours GMT. 64 The Lahore Journal of Economics, Vol.4, No.1 9 do not attend school. In rural areas only 17 per cent of girls and 43 per cent of boys complete five years of education. The overall primary and secondary enrollment rate is only 29 per cent. According to the 1981 Census, instead of attending schools, most of the children join the labour force and work in fields and in thousands of small workshops producing all types of goods including garments, carpets, sporting goods, leather goods, footwear, etc. Pakistan's labour participation rate for male children is higher than many other developing countries which are at the same level of development. According to the 1981 Census, 35 per cent of male children in the 10 to 14 years age group worked. This implies that the total volume of male child labour in Pakistan is over 10 million. This figure is four times the size of Singapore's total population, twice that of Norway's and equal to the entire Greek population. As far as female child labour is concerned, most of them are confined to domestic help and in household enterprises. So accurate data about female child labour is hardly available. However, according to a 1981 Census estimation, the female child labour participation rate is about 5 per cent. According to M. Weiner, and Omar Noman (1994), about 82 million children in India did not attend schools. That many of these children were engaged in labour, was difficult to find out because a large number of them were doing unpaid work in fields or in cottage industries, beside their parents and were not reported in the Census. A large number of children work in cottage industries, producing carpets, matches, firecrackers, brasswear, hand loomed clothes, baskets, bangles and other traditional handicrafts. Given the uncertainties, it is no wonder that estimates of child labour vary so greatly in India.